Re: Problems with pkgsrc on NetBSD-5.2

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>>> Just as a side note, NetBSD 5.2 itself has been out of support for
>>> almost two years.
>> Except, of course, for the only support it's ever really had: that
>> provided by community volunteers.
> Perhaps so, but there will be no Security Advisories, official
> patches, updates, etc.

Not from TNF, no.  True.  Support will be significantly more haphazard
in those respects.

>>> You should upgrade to NetBSD 7.x as soon as you can.
>> Not that I'm the person you were talking to, but, speaking
>> personally, fix the licensing and I might.
> Okay, I'll bite, what's the problem with the license?

Core let GPLv3 into the tree (in the form of a gcc update, I think it
was, though exactly what it was is pretty much irrelevant).

I've tried to read the GPLv3 twice, and people tell me I've _still_
missed major pieces.  If I have to hire a lawyer to make sense of the
license, it's not suitable for my purposes no matter _what_ it actually
ends up permitting.

The real problem to my mind, though, is that there is no (apparent)
awareness that this was even an issue[%], much less any commitment to
not do something like it again.  And it's _me_ that would be on the
hook for a potential copyright violation.  So, any version jump after
that point calls for me to examine the license for every last file in
the tree, and probably throw out significant fractions which are
distributed under GPLv3 or similarly unacceptable licenses.  This would
be a hell of a lot of work for, quite likely, a system crippled into
unusability (by the parts I had to throw out).

[%] In face-to-face discussions, someone recently told me there was a
    good deal of discussion on at least one of the lists.  I recall
    discussions about whether to version-jump gcc, but not about the
    licensing issue it would bring.  Perhaps I wasn't reading the right
    lists.  I'm fairly sure I didn't see anything like the "look,
    people, we feel we have to make this one exception, we'll fix it as
    soon as we can, and..." that would make me feel I could still trust
    TNF's choice of licenses.

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